The effort to electrify Africa got a positive jolt recently when U.K. and United States development agencies agreed to join forces to provide affordable, reliable and modern energy services by 2030, the Guardian reported this week.

Few passenger trains operate in Africa today, but that is set to change in the coming decades. Over the Christmas weekend, Mali and Senegal signed a $2.75 billion deal with the state-owned China Railway Construction Corp. to renovate a 745-mile railway connecting the countries’ capital cities, Bamako and Dakar, over the next four years, according to Reuters.